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Help please

My 2 week old has progressively gotten worse and worse at breastfeeding. These past few days have been a nightmare. She latches but then gets frustrated and pulls off, cries, and tries to relatch but doesn't because she is so upset sometimes she pushes my nipple away. This past day she has not slept for 7 hours and continues to cry. My 7 pm feeding did not work so we gave her 2 ounces of formula. I'm not sure what is going on--perhaps my milk is not letting down???

Re: Help please

i do not have an answer for you - others will come by - but i want to say, hang in there, 2 weeks is still so new and tough, and you can do this.

if you need to keep giving formula until you get some better answers (ie tonight), you'll want to try to minimize the bottles so your baby doesn't develop a prefernece for the fast & easy flow - you can use cups, syringes, lactation aids.

and if you do that, make sure to pump or hand express as much as you can, so that your body doesn't start thinking you don't need so much milk. then next time you can supplement with your milk.

you've come to the right place for help!

it will also help if you can answer some questions:
is tonight the first formula your baby had?
is she gaining well?
does she have at least 5-6 wet diapers and 4 poops per 24 hours?
what does nursing feel like for you - any pain?
any gut feelings or guesses about why she's so upset?

Re: Help please

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on the new baby!

What you're experiencing is definitely frustrating, but frustrating is normal with a new baby. In your shoes, I would want to do the following:
1. Take baby to bed with you for a couple of days and spend lots of time cuddling, relaxing, and nursing
2. Check out this link for tips on how to cope with a baby who is reluctant to nurse: http://kellymom.com/bf/concerns/child/back-to-breast/
3. Watch diaper output carefully- as long as pee and poop are coming out, you know that milk is going in
4. If diaper output is normal, shelve the bottles and throw out the formula
5. Call a LC, preferably an IBCLC, and ask for some hands-on help
6. Try swaddling baby- a well-wrapped baby cannot bat the breast away
7. Try offering the breast before baby is really hungry- hungry babies sometimes get too frustrated and upset to nurse

Latching/unlatching and fussing is normal in such a young baby. However, here are some questions for you which might reveal a problem, if there is one:
- Does the latching/unlatching/fussing happen mostly or only at a particular time of day, perhaps in the evenings?
- How does nursing feel? Are you in any discomfort when baby is nursing, or after baby finishes?
- How has baby's weight gain been so far, and how has baby's diaper output been so far?
- When baby pulls off the breast, what is happening? Do you ever see milk squirt or stream from the breast when she pulls off, or does she seem to pull off when the milk flow has slowed, does she do it at the beginning if a feeding or towards the end, what happens if you switch her to the other breast?

Re: Help please

Here is another-Besides baby fussing what other signs of inhibited letdown do you see? It's a possibility but not really all that common. Have you tried hand expressing?

My 7 pm feeding did not work so we gave her 2 ounces of formula.

Are you cue feeding or nursing on a scedule? IF you are scheduling feedings, or nursing every such and such hours, I suggest you stop that for now. 2 week old babies have to nurse extremely frequently, often a baby will want to nurse more than once an hour. This called cluster feeding and is entirely normal. If baby cluster feeds part of the day, baby can take longer sleep stretches here and there of 3-4 hours or so. At this age you want to make sure baby is nursing a minimum of 10-12 times per 24 hour day but what patterns your baby will nurse in depends on your baby. Later baby will fall into some routine but these early weeks there is not usually any routine and that is normal. Scheduling feedings at this point may be causing some of the issues you are seeing.

Re: Help please

I had some of the same problems. I was advised to pump for 1-2mjns before feeding. That way if shrewd getting frustrated because the milk was coming too fast this would help along with if it wasn't comingfast enough pumping would help the flow /letdow. It seemed to help. Good luck

Re: Help please

is tonight the first formula your baby had?--no; she has had supplemental formula (.5 to 1.5 ounces) since the pediatrician told us to do so b/c she lost 12% of her birthweight. Sometimes I don't supplement if the baby appears satisfied.
is she gaining well? She's gaining slowly--on her last dr appointment 10 days after birth, she weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces; birth weight was 7 pounds 4 ounces.
does she have at least 5-6 wet diapers and 4 poops per 24 hours? - Yes
what does nursing feel like for you - any pain? - no pain
any gut feelings or guesses about why she's so upset? - I think she is very smart and a good nurser; I suspect my milk is not letting down fast enough for her and this is frustrating to her. Milk usually does not stream from the breast. However, last night I had a couple shot glasses of beer and some mother's milk tea. Breastfeeding then went well for the night but I did see one instance this morning where the milk appeared to be streaming out from my breast and she pulled off for that reason. Yesterday, though, it appeared that the milk was not coming fast enough. I know I have anxiety about this. I did see a lactation consultant last week. She breastfed like a champ for that consultation. The lactation consultant said my anxiety may be delaying my milk let-down.... Usually the latching/unlatching happens in the evening between 5 and 8 so 7 hours of it during the day was very unusual.... I hope that answers your questions! I don't have time to proofread this so I apologize before-hand for any misspelled words!